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Basically it means having "agency." What most people are looking for when they think of "intelligence" is not the ability to master specific tasks, but to choos

Basically it means having "agency." What most people are looking for when they think of "intelligence" is not the ability to master specific tasks, but to choose which tasks to perform using one's own "free will," ultimately leading to behavior that humans find novel and feel they can connect with.

pgodzin 8y ago
But what does it mean in the context of a mouse? The mouse isn't using it's free will to decide whether to become a computer programmer or a doctor, it's responding to stimulus and environment. If an AI is trained to mimic the responses of a mouse is that intelligent? Agency in the context of a machine seems purposefully impossible to reach - its decisions are always somehow tied back to how it was programmed to react.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  The mouse reacts to stimuli and environment in a qualitatively different way than our programs do. It does continuous and essentially free-form learning of the environment around it, and engages in what looks to us as dynamic formulation and achievement of goals. In "AI" we have today, the learning is very shallow (despite the "deep learning" buzzword), it's usually neither free-form nor continuous, and goals are set in stone.
  - pgodzin 8y ago
    You are applying what you know about the learning process in current AI. But if you simply observed behavior between a real mouse and an AI mouse, especially if the latter was trained to mimic the behavior of the former, can you tell that they react in a completely different way?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      If your AI mouse would behave like the real mouse for couple hours of observation, I'd conclude you've done a good job. I'm not trying to make a Chinese room argument (which I don't buy), implying there's some hidden "spark" needed. I'm just saying that currently existing "AI" programs are pretty far from mouse brain, both in individual capabilities and the way they're deployed together (i.e. they're not). For instance, deep learning is to mice brains what a sensor/DSP stack is to a processor. We seem to be making progress in higher-level processing of inputs, but what's lacking is the "meat" that would turn it into a set of behaviors giving rise to a thinking entity.
  - aeternus 8y ago
    The goals for a mouse are also set in stone and simple: maximize brain dopamine. Almost everything a mouse does can be described in terms of maximizing that 'reward', and that can lead to a host of other emergent behavior. I don't see much difference between that and Open AI's engine: https://openai.com/five/ https://openai.com/five/. Watch some of those games and you definitely see the same dynamic formulation and complex decision-making, none of which was directly programmed.
- mikeash 8y ago
  What’s the difference compared to a human, whose decisions are always tied back to how its atoms are arranged?
- resu_nimda 8y ago
  I put agency in quotes because it's really a convincing illusion of agency that we're going for. In the end, I agree with those making the point that even we don't have free will. Ultimately it just has to be able to convince humans that "wow, there's an actual thinking and learning 'being' in there."
apk-d 8y ago
What makes you think a mouse (71M neurons) has agency\free will? Does a cockroach (1M neurons), fruit fly (250K), jellyfish (5k) have agency? I don't think we're gonna get far by relying on a phenomenon that we can't clearly define or even (externally) observe.
- daxorid 8y ago
  Indeed. Human beings have many, many examples to suggest that we lack agency, as well. Why do addiction, obesity, crimes of passion, etc exist? Without the baggage of the limbic system and dopamine-seeking behaviors, it's quite easy to argue that an artificial intelligence is potentially capable of even greater degrees of agency than humans.
  - ntsplnkv2 8y ago
    Many people overcome these addictions, though.
  - goatlover 8y ago
    That doesn't mean we lack agency, it just means agency is complicated by other factors. It's not an either-or thing.
joe_the_user 8y ago
"Basically it means having 'agency.'" Well, in these definitions of intelligence, what one often ends up with is some combination of "deal robustly with it's environment" and a bunch of categories defined in terms of each other. That's not to say categories/qualities/term like "agency", "free will", "feel they can connect with", "find novel" and such are unimportant. It's just saying people using the terms mostly couldn't give mathematically/computationally exact definitions of them. And that matters for any complete modeling of these things.

pgodzin 8y ago

But what does it mean in the context of a mouse? The mouse isn't using it's free will to decide whether to become a computer programmer or a doctor, it's responding to stimulus and environment. If an AI is trained to mimic the responses of a mouse is that intelligent? Agency in the context of a machine seems purposefully impossible to reach - its decisions are always somehow tied back to how it was programmed to react.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
The mouse reacts to stimuli and environment in a qualitatively different way than our programs do. It does continuous and essentially free-form learning of the environment around it, and engages in what looks to us as dynamic formulation and achievement of goals. In "AI" we have today, the learning is very shallow (despite the "deep learning" buzzword), it's usually neither free-form nor continuous, and goals are set in stone.
- pgodzin 8y ago
  You are applying what you know about the learning process in current AI. But if you simply observed behavior between a real mouse and an AI mouse, especially if the latter was trained to mimic the behavior of the former, can you tell that they react in a completely different way?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    If your AI mouse would behave like the real mouse for couple hours of observation, I'd conclude you've done a good job. I'm not trying to make a Chinese room argument (which I don't buy), implying there's some hidden "spark" needed. I'm just saying that currently existing "AI" programs are pretty far from mouse brain, both in individual capabilities and the way they're deployed together (i.e. they're not). For instance, deep learning is to mice brains what a sensor/DSP stack is to a processor. We seem to be making progress in higher-level processing of inputs, but what's lacking is the "meat" that would turn it into a set of behaviors giving rise to a thinking entity.
- aeternus 8y ago
  The goals for a mouse are also set in stone and simple: maximize brain dopamine. Almost everything a mouse does can be described in terms of maximizing that 'reward', and that can lead to a host of other emergent behavior. I don't see much difference between that and Open AI's engine: https://openai.com/five/ https://openai.com/five/. Watch some of those games and you definitely see the same dynamic formulation and complex decision-making, none of which was directly programmed.
mikeash 8y ago
What’s the difference compared to a human, whose decisions are always tied back to how its atoms are arranged?
resu_nimda 8y ago
I put agency in quotes because it's really a convincing illusion of agency that we're going for. In the end, I agree with those making the point that even we don't have free will. Ultimately it just has to be able to convince humans that "wow, there's an actual thinking and learning 'being' in there."

apk-d 8y ago

What makes you think a mouse (71M neurons) has agency\free will? Does a cockroach (1M neurons), fruit fly (250K), jellyfish (5k) have agency? I don't think we're gonna get far by relying on a phenomenon that we can't clearly define or even (externally) observe.

daxorid 8y ago
Indeed. Human beings have many, many examples to suggest that we lack agency, as well. Why do addiction, obesity, crimes of passion, etc exist? Without the baggage of the limbic system and dopamine-seeking behaviors, it's quite easy to argue that an artificial intelligence is potentially capable of even greater degrees of agency than humans.
- ntsplnkv2 8y ago
  Many people overcome these addictions, though.
- goatlover 8y ago
  That doesn't mean we lack agency, it just means agency is complicated by other factors. It's not an either-or thing.

joe_the_user 8y ago

"Basically it means having 'agency.'" Well, in these definitions of intelligence, what one often ends up with is some combination of "deal robustly with it's environment" and a bunch of categories defined in terms of each other. That's not to say categories/qualities/term like "agency", "free will", "feel they can connect with", "find novel" and such are unimportant. It's just saying people using the terms mostly couldn't give mathematically/computationally exact definitions of them. And that matters for any complete modeling of these things.